I flew through these books with a speed and dedication that is nearly embarrassing. I haven’t been so enamored of a supernatural character since Angel and I guess that totally tells of my ridiculous infatuation with the romance of vampire characters…especially tortured ones who fall in love with the wrong person and use it to become totally self-flagellating.

The Twilight series was never going to be great literature…it wasn’t terribly well written and it wasn’t the greatest character development or dialogue ever put to paper (listen to me pretending to be a book critic, but SERIOUSLY?) so I wasn’t expecting Shawshank Redemption or anything.

Ok.

The movie.

If Melissa Rosenberg (screenwriter for Twilight) got together and wrote a movie with George Lucas they could probably write the highest-grossing, crapball of a love story ever to induce retching in the masses.

Lines that read cheesy in the book but were doable because you could imagine it in a particular inflection or tone came out whiny and thoroughly desperate when spoken aloud. GAG!

Book = Bella falls in love with the entire Cullen family, they adopt her as one of their own and they become this place of complete acceptance for her.

Movie = The Cullen family is practically mute, they just stand around glaring a LOT and looking expensive…Jasper’s constant expression looks scarily like Edward Scissorhands was just told he’s getting a prostrate exam and Esme, instead of being this soothing mother-figure, has apparently overdosed on Martha Stewart.

Book = The Cullen family is supposed to be gorgeous beyond all belief, freakishly good looking to the point of almost painful to look at. Their skin in sunlight is supposed to shimmer like diamonds. Rosalie is the epitome of beauty, a blond to drive all other blonds to drink bottles of peroxide.

Movie = They’re ok. Here’s the thing. They obviously didn’t cast the movie based on acting ability, so they could have AT LEAST gone with finding actors that looked the parts…OR…and this is a big OR apparently…I don’t know, actually used BLOND ACTORS where characters are blond. Instead, I spent a good portion of the movie playing “Bad Hair Dye Bingo”. And the glittering skin? OMG, I’m not sure I had a definite thought on what it would look like on screen, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t look like Edward had been bedazzled or had some harrowing run-in with the Tinkerbell.

Someone who didn’t read the book wouldn’t understand Edward’s initial reaction to Bella…a vicious avoidance to the scent of her tasty-oh-so-tasty blood…the movie made it seem as if she had unbearable B.O. and that with a shower and a shave perhaps she wouldn’t be quite so miserable a lab partner.

Of course, someone who didn’t read the book would probably fall in love with the movie…which I sort of envy.

I get that there were big chunks of the book that had to be pitched so they could make the movie in a reasonable amount of time…and frankly, I didn’t want to watch an hour of Bella moaning about how she was homely next to Edward and he was just so darn FAST…and the creepy bit about him sneaking into her house every night to watch her sleep? *shudder*

There really is so much more that I could go on about that I disliked but you know what?

There were some really good parts too.

The special effects of the woods and the tree-climbing were great…the baseball scene was exactly how I pictured it in my mind…Robert Pattinson was (and I really had huge doubts about this one) pretty darn good as Edward…so much so that I pitied him for having to spit out those detestable lines of dialogue.

And again, Robert, feel free to drop me an email.

It was so not what my heart desired for this movie. I wanted Casablanca with really sharp canines…I wanted The Notebook with a dark and twisty side.

I got a movie that looked and sounded like it was based on a book written for a thirteen year old.

Oh RIGHT! It was.

I’m sure that to a tween “I’d rather die than to stay away from you” translates to “I wish I could quit you” somewhere down the line.

18 Comments on “Never Read The Book First!”

So yeah. I saw it also. Except that when I saw it – I think i was the ONLY one over 18 in the theatre. For what it was – I liked it. There are certainly things I would have done differently, but then again, wouldn’t we all?

Totally agree on all counts about the movie. But movies are NEVER as good as books. And seriously, something must be wrong with me. I think I am the only one on earth that thinks Robert Pattinson is NOT hot. He does nothing for me. Is that weird??

So I read the books and loved them.. but totally agree about it not being the most amazingly written book. At least in terms of language. Oh and I definitely find guys watching you while you sleep weird.. don’t care if you are a vampire or not.. it’s weird. I was planning on bringing the BF with me to this movie.. but now I’m debating will this result in eye rolling the whole time? Hmm

Ugh, the movie was just awful. Some of the special effects were cool, like you said. But that didn’t make up for the terrible acting. The whole thing was laughable. Still, at least it was fun to hang with you guys while suffering.

Haven’t seen the movie yet. Not sure if I’ll make the time. I can be hyper critical, so I’m going in with sub-basement level expectations if I do go. Thanks for the heads up. The hair color commentary was hilarious!

even though the acting wasn’t that great, i think the director is the source of the potential problem. the casting hurts my heart. rosalie? give me a fucking break. and esme?! i could not get the fact that she is the crazy annoying bitch from grey’s out of my head. i hate her. and i don’t want to hate esme. ugh.

but really- when i saw the movie again, i liked it a lot better. then i went home and skimmed twilight and i realized that the writer took a lot of dialoge DIRECTLY from the book and put it into the movie. i dunno, maybe lines that cheesy are hard to deliver seriously- no matter who you are.
ps- i am in love with rob pattinson’s mouth. his lips and teeth adn the way he does his half smirky smile.. holy fuck i want to totally make out with him.

I read the series, Anissa, because of you (and a bunch of coworkers telling me to)

I read it in about a week, only because the stores were SOLD OUT of “New Moon”, which hampered the whole “reading of a series thing”. I couldn’t put the books down. I had to set a timer to let myself read so I could actually do things around the house. To put it in perspective, I read the last HP book in about 6 hours. If I fall in love, I can’t put it down, so four books in a week, not too shabby.

Thanks for putting out the love for the series on your blog. I cried reading Breaking Dawn. I’m a sap!

Oh, and I decided awhile ago to wait for Twilight on my Netflix. LOL. I LOVED Robert Pattinson as Cedrick Diggory. That’s where I fell in love with the poor boy. Mmmm …

So all the way through the movie I was like: “Is this Twilight? Are you sure we didn’t enter some other movie?”
It was really, really bad, at least according to my mental picture of the books – how I had imagined it,… it was totally different!
What I had loved about the books – the feelings, the magical ambience, the Cullens (so badly portrayed for the reasons you already said), … – was simply not there.
Robert really was what saved the movie, though ^^